Thanks for the extra info! I'm doing a lot of work now with python on EC2 and the reddit write ups + presentations have been a huge help. Thanks again.
Duly noted. I started with this talk and have been using it as a guide to scaling edge cases with python as well as AWS. I thought raid10 was overkill before I started digging into the postgres/EBS mess, but now it seem almost routine enough that Amazon should have it as a configuration option.
#1 tip: Don't use threading. Python threading + EC2 will not work well. Instead rely on the OS doing the task switching and run multiple copies.
If you want more info, I did a talk at Pycon about this and other things: redd.it/b5jyy